I'm excited for what 2015 holds for Spielbound and I hope that you've been enjoying the engagement that our game library provides. I've been personally enjoying the relaxed environment at
the cafe and library.

One of the central goals of Spielbound is to help teachers find ways to enhance student learning and engagement with board games. In order to do that we want to find ways to help teachers
see pathways for using games in schools. So how can we help with the professional development of teachers whose schedules are already packed? Go to the movies, of course!

On March 9th at 7 PM Spielbound and Filmstreams invite you to a special, one-time screening of the documentary World Peace and Other 4th-Grade Achievements. The event is open to all, but
area educators and their families are especially encouraged to attend. The film highlights the efforts of rural Virginia teacher John Hunter to use the non-violence principles of Mahatma Ghandi
to help his students understand peaceful discourse. His World Peace Game helps students to see the value of collaboration and communication in resolving conflicts. This inspiring story
will be followed by a Question and Answer session with a special panel.

Samurai Spirit is the latest game by Antoine Bauza, the creator of such fantastic games as 7 Wonders, Hanabi, Takenoko, Tokaido, and Ghost Stories. It is a 1-7 player cooperative game which puts seven brave samurai against a seemingly endless horde of bandits in order to defend a small village of farmers.

If that plot sounds familiar, then I applaud your taste in movies; the theme of the game is very much influenced by the 1956 classic Shichinin no Samurai (Seven Samurai) by Akira Kurosawa (Or for you western movie buffs, the 1960 Americanized remake, The Magnificent Seven). Mr. Bauza went so far as to write an homage to the movie in the rule book and named all of the Samurai in the game after the Samurai in the film.

A full game of seven players should take about 45 minutes, but a 2–3 player game can be done as quickly as 20 minutes. There is also a solo variant where one person controls two samurai with a few tweaks to the rules.

Recommended for: Groups of 4-7 players who are looking for a quick, light cooperative game, people who enjoy the "Seven Samurai" theme, people who do not mind losing often to forces out of their control (like in traditional solitaire, Chainsaw Warrior, or DungeonQuest).

Keeping moving ahead and always trying to improve can be great for creating successes, but I am also a firm believer in taking pause to review where we've come - the end of the year and other anniversaries are good for this.

2014 in Review

In the first quarter (Q1) we were finalizing details of our lease and Kickstarter launch including interviews with folks who had run several successful Kickstarter projects and non-profit community centers of their own. The most important decision we made was to tie the signing of the lease to the Kickstarter itself. If the public didn't support our idea enough to fund it, then we wouldn't move forward. *Spoiler alert* We're so glad you did support us! :-)

In Q2 we launched this Kickstarter project with great trepidation and excitement. The wonderful support from Omaha Code School for using their space for public game nights, the press, and word of mouth helped us be successful in raising much-needed startup funds! It was the first time that I got to be the public face and meet with the public about the project we had been working on for a couple of years. We signed the lease before the end of the Kickstarter and quickly moved forward with construction/remodeling.

Hundreds of hours of hard work from our amazing volunteers went into to cleaning and prepping our space in the summer of 2014.

This Sunday, December 14th, Spielbound will be hosting our first Pandemic Party from 12-6pm. This is not only a great chance to come and play one of the greatest and highest-rated cooperative games around, but also an opportunity to learn more about and support Doctor's Without Borders, an international medical humanitarian organization dedicated to providing healthcare and medical training to those in war-torn countries.

This Sunday, December 7 the Omaha City Chess Championship will be held at Spielbound Board Game Cafe. Competition will be divided into 2 sections: Championship and Unrated. The championship will be rated by the United State Chess Federation (USCF) and will feature cash prizes. The championship entry fee is $25. USCF membership is required to play in the Championship, but no membership is needed for the Unrated. If, however, any current Spielbound members register for the tournament, they will get a $5 discount off the entry fee. The Unrated entry fee is $20.

This Sunday, November 23rd from 12-6pm will officially be Catan Day at Spielbound! Come by and play one of the many versions of huge hit game Settlers of Catan including Star Trek Catan, Cities & Knights, Seafarers, Stone Age, and Catan: Junior. Never played Settlers of Catan before? That's okay! We will have volunteers available throughout the day to help teach and guide new players along. We will also be using this opportunity to help raise food for the Omaha Food Bank of the Heartland.

My name is Michael Fryda and I am the Teacher Outreach Coordinator for the organization. I'll be maintaining this blog to help you, the reader, understand what Spielbound has to offer you. I am also the contact for teachers in the Metro area who are interested in finding ways to bring board games into their curricula and after school clubs.

Why me? I'm a twelve-year veteran high school teacher and an adjunct professor of Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. I teach science at Westside High School in Omaha and I've been involved in creating staff development programs and mentoring first year teachers my entire career.

I've also been sponsoring an after school game club at Westside High School since 2003. A colleague splits the duties with me. Between the two us, we reach over 100 students every Tuesday. When I started the club, I set a series of educative goals for our students. We knew a decade ago, just as we do now that games have strong capacity for teaching critical thinking, strategic thinking, and cost-benefit analysis. All of these thinking modalities are taught in school curricula. We also wanted to be sure that students had a safe, inclusive environment to be at after school. Finally, we wanted to model a positive sporting spirit with our students.

This Saturday, Oct 25, we are joining with Accelerando Coffeehouse to run our 2nd annual Extra Life 24-hour board game marathon! Starting at 9am and finishing at 9am on Sunday we will have a variety of special events and giveaways all to raise funds for the Childrens Miracle Network and our local Children's Hospital. There are many ways that you can participate!

Beginning September 2nd, we'll be offering a slow rollout of our services. Feel free to come by during this time for an early experience to help us sharpen and improve prior to our grand opening to the public; tentatively scheduled for the first week of October.